


Flutterbye

by palimpsestus



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, F/M, Multi, POV Canon Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-27
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2018-03-03 21:56:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2889341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palimpsestus/pseuds/palimpsestus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Pigments mixed with blood for the cheeks, pigments and ash for the eyes, pigment and earth to dust a glow on my cheekbones. I chose classic looks when my friends scrimped and saved to stain their skin scarlet for those two summers it was in vogue. When they were left looking outdated, I was using my needles to emboss hints of lavender on my classic pieces, and when they looked cheap I looked classic." Effie Trinket's rise to grace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Black Tea

I wrote my name with a quill, the nib cut so the broad strokes were wide and the down strokes neatly tapered, ending in long flourishes. _Effie Trinket_.

“Are you done, Effie?” Sola’s hair jingled, each long silver braid on her head ending in a tiny glass bell. She was tapping her foot, the glass heel ringing every time it struck concrete. “The interview is almost starting.”

“Not yet,” I said. The interview was not nearly starting. Ceasar still had to remind the crowd of the best moments, and they would have to show Capiscum’s brilliant fight with the tribute from Four, at least a moment or so of it. I estimated we had at least ten more minutes before we needed to reach our seats.

Instead I stared down at my name in the neatly pressed visitor’s book. The Arena of the Twenty Second Annual Hunger Games had been a ruined village, with a little church and a cracked steeple, a schoolyard replete with swings and roundabouts and slides, all in perfect working order, which had captured the attention of many of the tributes, and become a blood bath. It was the graveyard that I had wanted to see, where a screen and a set of stadium seats had been placed for people to watch the finale of the Sixty Ninth Annual Hunger Games. It costs money to watch a Hunger Games in an old arena, and this celebration was the result of years of scraping by. Most people preferred Games in an arena they remembered, perhaps one they’d seen as a child. But this one, the Twenty Second Arena, was where Amitrit Fairborne bludgeoned his way to victory in the graveyard.

I looked at my name, the last in a long line of people had come to see where my father had won.

“Effie!” Sola stamped her foot so hard I fretted that the glass slipper would break. That would ruin our whole evening, and Sola would inconsolable. The book would have to wait. I tottered over in my own jewelled heels and skin tight pants, linking arms with Sola and leading the way to the amphitheatre. Our friends had saved us spots several rows up, and my calves burned as we jogged up the steps.

“It will be your tribute next year,” Dothan elbowed me gently.

“Hush!” I was smiling though, hoping that it could be passed off as excitement about the fanfare and the screen showing Capiscum’s highlights. “I might not even be a representative next year.”

“Why wouldn’t you be?” Dothan asked, flashing a toothy smile, his dark eyes crinkling at the edges. He settled down to watch the interview then, leaving me with a flutter in my stomach and a flush on my cheeks.

It’s true my work for the Game Makers has not gone unnoticed. For the last two years I coordinated the Victory Tour reception in District Five, and Makay did say he wouldn’t be surprised if I was promoted to representative for the next Games. I think he meant in District Five, but it would be impolitic to dethrone Karter. Besides. Besides . . . Five is not the District I really have my eyes on.

But of course the Games are in my blood, after all.  While the others watched Capiscum give his interview, I let my gaze roam to where my father had won, the gravestone still stained with blood. The others didn’t know why I had campaigned for us to watch the finale of the Games out here, but its cheapness did appeal. It wasn’t proper to reveal one’s lack of parentage after all.

This was going to be my year, I could feel it. They would probably start me off in District Five but it would be One or Two before long, and then, well . . . who knows? Even Claudius and Ceasar would have to retire one day.

_Welcome to the Seventy Fifth Annual Hunger Games! I will be Effie Trinket, your host this Quarter Quell._

I hid my smile by looking to my clasped hands.  Now wouldn’t that be a hoot?

 

***

 

My mother, who was tall and delicate, her buttermilk skin soft as silk and patterned with tiny golden butterflies that danced in the light, died when I was ten years old.

We stood in the crematorium while the rain lashed down on the windows. My aunt, an ugly, shrewd woman who wore black and worked in law, held my hand so tightly her long scarlet nails drew blood from my tiny palm.

“That will be an end of it,” Aunt Tribeca said. “You will study well at school and you will go into the civil service.”

I said nothing, and followed Aunt Tribeca to her dull, boring house near the Presidential palace. But I knew it was not the ‘end of it’, and it never would be.

My mother had saved and saved and saved and one night she had met Amitrit Fairborne. She would pull me into her lap and whisper this story by city-light in the night. They had loved one another and then, nine months later, she had a baby. Me.

But she didn’t have much money, because she paid the price for Amitrit Fairborne. That was why we didn’t put the lights on in the night time, and why we slept cuddled up in the same big bed to keep warm. One of my earliest memories is of watering down the eyeliner,  my tiny fingers shaking as I stirred the wand in the little pot of pigment, eking out beauty from the reserves  we had. When Aunt Tribeca became my guardian, I simply changed my colour palette, and I worked dark and blue until I could earn my own money, and could stop using Tribeca’s grey pigments.

Pigments mixed with blood for the cheeks, pigments and ash for the eyes, pigment and earth to dust a glow on my cheekbones. I chose classic looks when my friends scrimped and saved to stain their skin scarlet for those two summers it was in vogue. When they were left looking outdated, I was using my needles to emboss hints of lavender on my classic pieces, and when they looked cheap I looked classic.

Leaving Tribeca’s cold, grey home was the sweetest day of my life.

I did not fall into Makay’s service. While he had half a dozen paid interns, nephews, nieces, cousins of the elite, and more than twice that many unpaid work experience volunteers, I made myself known to him. I was always there for Makay with his tea, not coffee, black with a hint of apple – how they serve it in District Five. Of all us hopefuls, holding out cups, some of them beautifully decorated, stuck with real gemstones, it was my plain steel cup he took.

The steel was an expense, but a necessary one I judged. I noticed the trick when I was studying old footage of the Games Tours, watching Makay in the background. He always drank from a little steel cup. What was he drinking, I wondered? For the first few weeks of my service with Makay, he was would greet his gaggle of interns in the morning and take the first cup that came to his hand. He would go through trends, as everyone does, and when I was starting it was Sola who was in the lead. She had a beautiful cup every day, glittering and sparkling, sometimes translucent, sometimes with a message blazing on the side _Makay You Can Do It! Makay Is The Greatest_.

Sola was always on trend. I don’t think she even noticed me those first few weeks, she the daughter of a Minister and sister of a presenter. My parentage was secret, so I was in the back of the line of cups.

When had I last eaten? I was down to one bottle of pigment and so my whole look was dusted pink. It was striking, but it would look old quickly. So I studied footage, and I kept seeing that little steel cup. It was small, with dents, and I couldn’t find one exactly like it, but I did spot a passable substitute in a tiny little shop, near the walls of the Capitol. I remember standing there, counting out my credits in my palm, my mind racing. It was this or a new pigment, this or food, this . . . or defeat.

“You look conflicted, gorgeous,” the shopkeeper said. He was a brawny man, a dark man with grey eyes who seemed to be laughing at me.

“Forgot my purse,” I said, “Just saw it on a whim . . .”

The shopkeeper smiled and nodded, in that way shopkeepers have of knowing your lies. “It’s a solid little piece. Works well with the District Five aesthetic, so I’m told.”

I don’t know if he said it deliberately, or if he was just trying to kill the time, but I do know he saw the way my ears pricked and my attention snapped. District Five, after all, was where Makay’s mistress was kept.

“I used to be a Peacekeeper there,” the shopkeeper said, smiling again at my interest, but genuine this time. “Many years ago.”

“Not so many I’m sure,” I said quickly, without my thought, and was rewarded by a hearty chuckle.

“You pay a pretty compliment, my dear, but it was many years ago. Moved back here with my wife.”

It was something in the line, rehearsed and sharp, that told more than he meant. I didn’t pursue. He was not from the Capitol, and they must have paid to come here. Paid more than money. I placed the cup on the counter. “It’s a lovely piece.”

“I recommend tea,” the shopkeeper said, taking my cup and wrapping it in pretty silver paper. “In fact . . .” he went into the back for a moment, taking my cup with him, and then returned with a few little bags stuffed inside the steel cup, wrapping the whole bundle up so neatly. “That’s what we drink out in the District. Just in case you like experimenting.”

I paid my credits, and starving as I was, I brewed one of the five bags he’d left behind, in the steel cup, and I fancied that I was transported to Five, as I sat in the staff room, napping in the moments when no one looked. I had no home to go to.

The second tea bag I brewed that morning and I elbowed and pushed with the rest of the tribe, but it was Sola’s cup, made of cut sapphire, that was selected.

The third I brewed for myself, that night, faint and hungry and tired.

But the fourth brew, in the little steel cup, met Makay’s lips as he seized my cup from the crowd and starting barking his orders at the rest of us. I still remember, and always will, the way he looked twice at his cup and then at me. “Your name?”

“Effie Trinket,” I said, dipping my head a bit.

Makay said nothing else, but continued his notes. The next day he called my name, I delivered his cup, and he gave me a task. I got more teabags, I bought a stack, I sold two pairs of shoes to do it. I was given jobs by Makay and by the end of the month Sola knew my name too. They all did. And I wasn’t living in the staff room any more.

 

***

 

I woke up in bed, with Sola on one side of me and Dothan on the other side of her. Sola’s long limbs were naked, Dothan was only wearing a shirt. I had my underwear, with the lace ripped down the side. I traced my fingers over the ragged seam. It stung. Still, after so long, the loss of something valuable stung. I remember Sola ripping it, all to keep Dothan interested of course, and I remember wincing at the time. The lace could be fixed. With the money I made now, the lace could be thrown aside. But old habits die hard. The one that died hardest was the one that kept me from revealing how much the rip bothered me. I rose from our shared bed and stumbled into the bathroom, nonchalant, even if the other two were sleeping still.

Sola was serious about Dothan, and Dothan was not serious about Sola. To keep him sweet, Sola offered up more and more experiences, of which our little ménage à trois was beginning to taste stale.

In the bathroom, I took stock of the damage, both of my makeup and my lingerie. I tweaked both, not fixed, just made beautiful, and studied my reflection. Tour preparations would pick up soon, I’d return to District Five, I’d be Makay’s eyes and ears there, and I’d bring him back tea like I always did.

But for the Seventieth Annual Hunger Games, I was going to be somewhere else entirely.


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Effie receives her posting

“. . . in District Twelve.”

The smile did not waver, the awe and delight did not flee, but my heart went cold and my mouth dry. Makay and Seneca were beaming at me, Seneca was already checking his watch with a sharp and impatient jerk of his hand.

“District Twelve,” I repeated, a dull echo. When was the last time they even won?

The Second Quarter Quell, of course, Haymitch Abernathy, the dark haired man with the grey eyes. He wasn’t one for parties, a terrible drunk actually, poor old Yulissis was always having to tidy up after him. No wonder the man wanted out.

“But, I couldn’t possibly replace Yulissis,” I said carefully. “He’s been a favourite for years!”

Both Seneca and Makay glanced at one another, as if this hadn’t occurred to them, and I dared to hope for just a moment before the Game Maker laughed shortly, “No of course you couldn’t, but we’ll have to make do.”

Makay took a gentler approach. He reached over his narrow desk to touch my bare knee, squeezing it reassuringly. “They will grow to love you. Yulissis himself was a big proponent in putting your name forward. Believe me, there were some people who thought that Sola should be the next Escort promoted.”

Sola? In Twelve? I couldn’t decide if that made me laugh with delight or scorn. Sola would never tolerate such a fate, but that fate was to be mine . . .

“Yulissis is retiring,” Makay added, with one final squeeze of my thigh. “He’ll be joining me on the Tour Team, so you’ll still have plenty of contact with him. More, even!”

I smiled. I smiled and I listened to all that they said, not that it was much, and I smiled through the congratulations of all my colleagues and commiserations of my friends. “Twelve!” Sola shuddered expressively, the bells at the end of her hair jingling. “Oh Effie! You’re a martyr to the games!”

“Sola,” I scolded. “When I’m there I will stay at the train station lodgings, and Yulissis tells me he only stays one night a year and the Mayor of Twelve always gives him a lovely meal. It will be rustic I’m sure, but,” I trailed off, quite distracted at the thought.

“When do you go?” Sola asked.

“Yulissis is seeing out the tour, and I’m going to remain in Five for that, but for the next reaping, I’ll be there on camera.” I tried to smile even at this, after all there would be a little bit of time for me before the selection process, they’d want to get to know the new Escort, but it was the smile of a mask.

Of course, my promotion to Escort brought with it a hefty rise in my pay, a new apartment close to the Tribute Tower, and a patrol of stylists sending me free samples. There were several pieces in gold, including a catsuit with matching heels presented in a turquoise stained-glass box, protected by feathers. I loved it, and wore it to one of my first interview shoots in prep for the next games. There was also a long, silvery sheath dress in a material so soft and flowing it was like dipping my hand in a flowing stream whenever I touched it. It was beautiful, but when I tried it on its colour washed out my pale skin, made me look ghostly and waiflike. I couldn’t think when I might wear it, so placed it in storage along with some of the more hideous pieces that had been sent to me.

When Yulisiss and I met, with Caesar Flickerman on his stage (a red ruby setup this year, the seats were made of an assortment of red glass tubes, occasionally fire would sprout from one if Caesar said or heard something suitably dramatic), I wore a vivid purple skirt suit. Yulissis coordinated with a lilac tunic and soft grey pants. My heels were the same shade of grey, his shoes my shade of purple. My wig was lilac, curled and sparkling with purple glitter. We had considered the outfit carefully, wanting to show how the transition would be seamless, yet exciting and fresh.

“And what do you think has been Twelve’s finest moment, Yulisiss?”

“Well it was before my time, but when Haymitch Abernathy won the second Quarter Quell, that was something,” Yulissis said.

“Yes indeed.” Caesar turned to the camera. “Unfortunately, Haymitch couldn’t be with us tonight as he’s preparing for the next games, back in Twelve.” A lie. And now for another. “What about you, Effie?”

“Well I bet you were all expecting me to choose Haymitch, weren’t you?” I chided the crowd, and paused for their titter, “but I think it would be young Talli from the Fifty Second Games, which some of you may not remember of course, but I remember very vividly. A young tribute from Twelve, with amazing skills with a knife, do you remember Caesar?”

“Yes, I do, of course,” Caesar said, and cue a clip from those games. Me and my researchers had hunted for hours for a reasonable clip from Twelve.

“That’s the kind of thing I’m really looking forward to seeing from Twelve in the years to come,” I said, after the applause had died down and Caesar beamed at me.

Later, offstage, Yulissis caught my elbow and pulled me in close for a kiss on the cheek, smelling faintly of rum. “Good luck, darling. You’ll do fine.” With that, he traipsed off, his bowtie dangling from his fingers, whistling tunelessly.

 

***

 

The Seventieth Games rolled ever closer. Yulissis saw through his last tour, I was given gifts and tearful goodbyes from the crew in Five, and then my travel wardrobe was packed in three matching suitcases, my accessories in a trunk with silver inlays, and I boarded the train to Twelve. It was more than obvious that Yulissis did not run a tight ship and the crew were tired of my meetings and  schedules and charts. Let them complain. I spent the journey reworking my speeches, looking over my costumes, and touching base with my small network of potential sponsors. That was Haymitch’s job, really, but with only one Victor in Twelve I thought might chip in.

And then our train pulled in to the station.

The attitudes to my crew changed tone, from irritation to smugness, and I stepped on to the platform in a pair of jewelled mules, a loose flowing silk skirt patterned with flowers, and top the same colour blue as the sapphires in my heels. My wig was styled blue to match, with silk flowers embedded in the braids, and I stood on the platform completely alone but for a Peacekeeper who wasn’t even wearing his helmet.

“Uh, hey.” The Peacekeeper had been lounging against a rickety fence and he sound straighter, sticking out a meaty paw to shake.

I smiled, wondered where the crowds were, where the citizens were . . . “Hello.”

“Usually . . . Yulissis goes to see Mayor Undersee.”

And why on earth wasn’t the Mayor _here_? Where was everyone? “Then we shall do that,” I said, and followed the nameless Peacekeeper to a dusty vehicle with tyres so large I practically had to be lifted into it. I watched the silk of my skirt be crushed into the dirt engrained into the seat. We trundled through the District, black dust oozing from every joint and seam in the place, the Peacekeeper utterly silent.

The Mayor’s house was little more than a shack, really, and I stood at the front door with my Avox-like companion while the two or three Twelve Citizens that were out on the street seemed to huddle by the walls, avoiding us entirely.

Had I misjudged this outfit? I might have thought so had there clearly been no pride at all in those around me. I barely saw a patch of colour that wasn’t monochrome, or a fabric that wasn’t rough spun. Even my Aunt Tribeca would have found them severe.

“Hello.” A small blonde girl, perhaps twelve years old, answered the door. She wore a clean dress and her hair was neatly pinned atop her head, and this endeared me to her instantly.

“Madge!” A portly man hurried down a dimly lit hallway, catching the girl by the shoulder and pulling her backwards. “I’m so sorry, Ms Trinket, I didn’t expect to see you here.” He shot a look at the Peacekeeper. “I see Cray has escorted you. Won’t you please come in? Thank you, Cray.” And Mayor Undersee immediately improved my impression of him by barring the Peacekeeper entry.

The Undersees lived in a perfectly rustic little house. The mother was familiar in a way I couldn’t remember, and Undersee himself was not exactly scintillating conversation, but I like their daughter Madge immediately. She complimented my outfit and played us some piano after our meal. Undersee apologised a few times for the meagre feast, saying that the district had suffered from setbacks in the last two years.

“My friend’s dad died,” Madge piped up, licking flavoured ice from her spoon. She frowned when her parents’ glanced at her. “Well he did. Lots of men did.”

At the end of the meal they had another Peacekeeper take me back to the train, this one who said I looked nice and tried to tell me some stories about the town, though it was only illuminated by the car’s headlights. I tried my best to thank him politely, but my escape to the waiting train was a relief so great I found my cheeks were stained with tears when I caught my reflection in the mirror.

 

***

 

I knew of Haymitch Abernathy’s problems, everyone did, but to be confronted by them face to face was another matter entirely. Throughout the Reaping he was a stumbling buffoon, and I don’t believe it gave his Tributes any confidence whatsoever. They were a poor pair, a boy of about thirteen and a girl of around seventeen, and had said very little in the way of thank you or shown much in the way of excitement. They said nothing throughout dinner, but ate like little monsters, and Haymitch didn’t even show his face.

Twelve, I was beginning to think, was less a promotion and more an exile. Yulissis had lied to me, and Makay, and Caesar, and Seneca and all of them. I watched the manners of the Tributes and felt my jaw ache from the gritting of my teeth.

The train sped onwards, both too quickly and too slowly. When we reached the Capitol I would be among friends, but they would see what I had become. So I sat in my room and watched the recap of the reapings, watched my colleagues hold the crowd, while Twelve’s was cut insultingly short. What about my own Tributes, I wondered. Perhaps one might win. I found myself rewinding the footage of District Five, replaying it over and over.

It should have been my District.

And it was these thoughts that led me back to the dining car, searching the cabinets for a bottle of junip I’d seen there.

“Is this what you’re looking for?” A gentle clink of crystal accompanied the low voice and I jumped so quickly my wig slipped.

“Haymitch!” With one hand on my wig and the other closing my robe tighter, I stared into the dimness of the carriage. In the flashing lights of the railway I could make out his figure on a wingback armchair, dangling the junip bottle from his hand. “I didn’t think your tastes ran to junip.”

He chuckled to himself and poured a generous, very generous, measure into a glass. He rose from the chair to hand it to me. His grey eyes seemed very close to my face. Firey colours would compliment them, I found myself thinking. Burnt oranges and umbers, brilliant sulphur yellows and gas blues. “You’re going to need it,” he whispered, “because those kids aren’t coming home with us.”

He pressed the bottle into my hand, fingertips brushing mine, and staggered back down the carriage.

I wondered what my mother had thought when she first met Amitrit Fairborne, and if it was anything like what I was thinking about Haymitch Abernathy.


End file.
